Mr. Ortega’s apparent victory wasn’t a surprise. Months earlier, the main opposition coalition was blocked by the courts from participating in the election. The courts and Nicaragua’s electoral authorities are controlled by Mr. Ortega, analysts and opposition leaders say.

Many Nicaraguans chose not to vote. About 35% of voters didn’t go to the polls, an increase of nine points compared with the last presidential election in 2011. Analysts say the increased abstention rate is a measure of many Nicaraguans unhappiness with the country’s uncompetitive elections.

Hardly surprising, when the Sandinistas control all of the country’s institutions, including the Supreme Court, and, of course, the elections authority,

Mrs. Ortega’s known for her fashion statements,

In her spare time, according to the WSJ, she “is mostly responsible for the day-to-day running of the poor Central American country.”

Mr. Ortega, now 70, has spent more time in power—21 years over two stints—than the late Mr. Somoza

and he’s keeping the family business, thankyouverymuch,

In August, Mr. Ortega named his wife as his running mate in the coming election. She is already his government’s chief spokesperson and de facto prime minister. One of Mr. Ortega’s sons is in charge of a proposed $40 billion plan by a little-known Chinese businessman to build a transcontinental canal through Nicaragua. Economists and environmentalists say the plan is far-fetched.

A number of authoritarian governments, drawn to the economic power of capitalism but wary of uncontrolled free markets, have invented something new: state capitalism. In this system, governments use markets to create wealth that can be directed as political officials see fit.

The latest revelations about the Cold War-era case come on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Orlando Letelier, a leading opponent of the Pinochet regime and onetime Chilean foreign minister, and his think-tank colleague, Ronni Moffitt, in a car bomb on D.C.’s Embassy Row.

NICARAGUANicaragua rejects U.S. bill for loans with strings attached (emphasis added)The Nicaraguan government was responding to the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act, a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday. A version was introduced by Senator Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate earlier this month.

Nicaragua on Thursday criticized a proposal by U.S. lawmakers that would require the Central American country, which will hold elections in November, to make political changes in order to receive international loans.
. . .
The Nicaraguan government was responding to the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act, a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday. A version was introduced by Senator Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate earlier this month.

The bill proposes blocking Nicaragua from obtaining loans from international financial institutions unless the country “is taking effective steps to hold free, fair, and transparent elections.”

On Nov. 6, Nicaraguans will vote for president and 90 members of the National Assembly.

President Daniel Ortega is the favorite as he seeks his third consecutive term.

Budgets have been roughly in balance and public debt is low. The central bank aims for an inflation rate of 4.5% and usually gets close. Commercial banks are healthy (in part because they charge high interest rates and face little competition). Regulation, like the tax code, is business-friendly. Independent trade unions, suppressed under Stroessner, are weak.

“The Uruguayan government is doing everything possible,” Vazquez said. “But as I’ve said in the past: If the countries where the Syrian citizen wants to go don’t take him, we can’t do anything about it.”

Ricardo Pierdant, a Miami-based businessman, in 2013 paid close to $30,000 in property taxes on behalf of first lady Angélica Rivera for an apartment she owns in Miami, according to tax records seen by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Pierdant is a close friend of Mexico´s first family, according to Mr. Peña Nieto´s office.

The first lady purchased her apartment in the wealthy island enclave of Key Biscayne in 2005.

Earlier this week, socialist Maduro accused Paraguay of being part of “an extreme right wing alliance” aimed at blocking Venezuela from assuming its role as head of Mercosur as scheduled during the second half of the year.

ousted 16 opposition legislators from the Liberal Independent Party and its ally the Sandinista Renovation Movement Friday for not recognizing their officially sanctioned leader. That leader, Pedro Reyes, had recently been given that authority by theSupreme Court, which removed the opposition party’s previous leader following a long-running political dispute. Reyes is seen by some within his own party as a tool of Ortega.

The 16 legislators removed from their seats supported the party’s former leader Eduardo Montealegre and refused to recognize Reyes, who said the vacant seats will be filled by party members who recognize him.

Carlos Langrand, one of the ousted lawmakers, said through his Twitter account: “We have been unseated for not lowering our heads before the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega.”

Yesterday Ortega named his wife, Rosario Murillo, age 65, as his running mate, keeping it all in the family

Mr Ortega, 70, is a former left-wing guerrilla who formed part of the government junta following the Sandinista revolution against the dictatorship of the Somoza family, which ruled Nicaragua for four decades.

The Cuban-inspired Sandinistas seized power in 1979.Since returning to office nearly a decade ago, Ortega has methodically and completely dismantled Nicaragua’s fragile institutional democracy from within and reshaped the laws in a way that support his personal aspirations to create a one-party system that he can govern unopposed till death do they part. By hook and crook, Ortega and his lackeys have taken control of all four branches of government, implemented a repressive zero-tolerance policy for street protests, and rewritten the constitution to eliminate checks and balances.

The party lost elections in the 1990s, but Mr Ortega returned to power in January 2007, after a successful election campaign.

Since returning to office nearly a decade ago, Ortega has methodically and completely dismantled Nicaragua’s fragile institutional democracy from within and reshaped the laws in a way that support his personal aspirations to create a one-party system that he can govern unopposed till death do they part. By hook and crook, Ortega and his lackeys have taken control of all four branches of government, implemented a repressive zero-tolerance policy for street protests, and rewritten the constitution to eliminate checks and balances.

The accusation came after Costa Rica said Saturday it was giving temporary visas to a group of about 1,000 stranded, penniless Cubans, telling them they had one week to cross the country and continue their journey toward the United States.

There has been a surge in Cubans seeking to reach the United States since the two Cold War foes announced a historic rapprochement last December, raising expectations that Washington may soon end its policy of granting residency to Cuban immigrants who reach its shores.

And open borders?

Cubans seeking to leave the communist island for the United States are increasingly traveling overland through Central America and Mexico rather than risk crossing the Florida Straits by boat.

The migrants stranded in Costa Rica had flown from Cuba to Ecuador before working their way up through Colombia and Panama.

Costa Rica said last Tuesday it had dismantled a human trafficking ring that was charging Cubans $7,000 to $15,000 to send them to the United States.

The Chinese government denies it is behind the concession held by HKND. But with more than $3.5 trillion in foreign reserves, it’s the logical candidate to foot the bill. Beijing has been flexing its geopolitical muscles in the Americas for more than a decade, and it hasn’t hesitated to work closely with corrupt dictatorships like those in Ecuador and Venezuela. According to HKND, the Nicaragua canal will require a labor force of 50,000. Many can be expected to be Chinese. The company says the China Railway Construction Corporation is conducting feasibility studies of the project.The HKND concession includes the rights to develop “two ports, a free-trade zone, holiday resorts and an international airport.” Canal or no canal, each is a business opportunity not only for China but also for Mr. Ortega, who is bound to ensure that he gets a piece of the action.

There’s action already: Last year Ortega made a $300 million telecommunications deal with Xinwei Telecom Enterprise Group, of which Wang Jing is chairman.

But to make room for the waterway, ports, roads and free-trade zones, the company says it needs 642 square miles. Nicaraguan government officials justify the pending expropriations, which would uproot 27,000 people, saying the canal will transform this impoverished Central American nation by creating 50,000 jobs and doubling the economy.

Though the government has yet to seize a single acre, HKND Group says it will pay market prices for confiscated acreage. However, a 2013 law authorizing the government to expropriate any land needed for the canal says payments will be based on each property’s assessed tax value, figures that are usually much lower.

Then there’s this,

“Nothing is going on with the canal because there is not yet any money deposited for it,” said Bayardo Arce, the top economic adviser to President Daniel Ortega.

Say again? A project this big,

and “there is not yet any money deposited for it“?

And, if that’s not bad enough,

More than one-third of the canal’s route skips dry ground altogether by cutting across Lake Nicaragua, the largest reservoir of drinking water in Central America.

Back in the 1980s, Ortega expropriated more than 1.5 million acres, including properties belonging to opposition leaders. The canal project, even (especially?) if no canal actually is built, may serve Ortega’s purposes after all.